To
find the path
(The path is filled with experiences,
discoveries, ecological understanding and awareness, and gives you belief
in the future).
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Experiences
Experiences
with all senses consolidates nature awareness.
Your own experiences
creates a fundamental foundation for your learning. To dare to explore
nature with all your senses also gives you a feeling of security and sense
of belonging to nature.
Discoveries
The next step
on the way to ecological understanding is to discover the diversity of
nature.
And to ask
questions. To explore the diversity of a lake, could lead to many exciting
discoveries. It arises questions such as: How can animals live in water?
What do they eat? How do they breath?
Understanding
Making your
own discoveries and reaching an understanding of ecology, is an important
part of the Nature Schools methodology. This
includes everything from simple food chains - who eats what? - to more
complicated studies of the ecology of a biotope. |
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Awareness
The knowledge
of natural cycles gives us a foundation in understanding how man
is part of these cycles. It makes it obivious
that we have an influence on, and depend upon, natural cycles. And maybe
above all, that we through our actions can change our society so it becomes
more adapted to these cycles. |
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| The
soul of the Nature School |
The number of Nature Schools are
constantly growing and the organization is developing. A short summary
of the ”soul of the Nature School” shows the width: |
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Nature School is a way of working, rather
than a building or a place.
The most important resource disseminates
the way of working, is the staff of the Nature School.
The children´s experiences and
sensory impressions of nature, are the foundation of active learning.
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The
foundation of learning
To be able
to apply a exploring way of working in nature, is it important to offer
the pupils opportunities in taking their own initiative and to accomplish
their tasks. The Nature Schools´way of working make the pupils active. |
Man is basically
a curious and inquiring being, who moulds by the encouter of different
surroundings and other people.
Every day has its possibilities,
but also its problems which must be solved. Your own experiences create
a foundation for growing. |
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Learning is an active and living
process, where you create your own knowledge.
The scientific way of working -
making hypothesis, researching, results and conclusions - is a good structure
in the acquisition of knowledge.
Learning should be pleasurable and
include curiousity and an eagerness to learn.
Regularly outdoor experiences every
time of the year, in different surroundings and contexts, gives you a wider
knowledge. Knowledge about concrete facts could improve,
giving you comprehension.
Knowledge also comprises skills,
for example to be able to handle the landing net or the magnifying glass
in the right way.
A fourth kind of knowledge is conversancy,
a intuitive dimension of knowledge, close to the sensual experiences.
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Further
Education
The staff at the Nature Scools giving
coarses, has an everyday connection to the subjects and methodology, supplied
at the coarses. We teach the course participants in the same way as we
later want them to teach their children. Hence, many teachers at schools
and preschools are using the Nature Schools to get further education.
Municipalities often uses the Nature
School in spreading knowledge about nature and ecocyclic thinking. In the
work of Agenda 21, the methodology of the Nature School is very useful.
It often deals with spreading knowledge and to participate in the local
environmental work. Associations, organizations, companies and so on, also
have discovered the possibilies of the Nature Schools. |
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